Guardian readers responds to an article by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett in which she laments the takeover of four family-owned cafes I can’t help being disappointed by the current controversy over the Hampstead Heath cafes, as highlighted by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett ( I’m sick of avocado toast – I just want to keep my local, untrendy cafe, 12 January ), as it’s all happened before. In 2016, as chair of the Hampstead Heath management committee, I voted against the proposal to take the running of the Parliament Hill cafe away from the D’Auria family and hand it to the Benugo chain, but the proposal was initially agreed (albeit by only one vote). There was a predictable outcry against this decision, and I found myself confronted by angry protesters at a meeting chaired by the local MP, Keir Starmer. Continue reading...